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category aliases tags summary location start relations created updated
Private Organization
Carnegie Endowment
CEIP
Carnegie
Organization
ThinkTank
ForeignPolicy
AIGovernance
OpenPhilanthropy
Nonproliferation
Washington foreign-policy think tank founded by Andrew Carnegie in 1910, led by William Burns and then Tino Cuéllar, which hosted Holden Karnofsky and took Open Philanthropy money for AI-governance work. Washington, D.C. 1910
type with reverse role start fn
founded Andrew Carnegie true founding gift of 10 million dollars 1910 1
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head_of William Burns true president 2015 2021 2
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funded Open Philanthropy true 597,717 dollars over two years for AI governance research led by Matt Sheehan 2022-03 15
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employed_by Matt Sheehan true senior fellow, Asia Program; co-director, China AI Initiative 16
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head_of Alger Hiss true 1947-02-01 1949-05 president; elected December 1946, in office from February 1, 1947; on leave from December 1948, until the annual meeting of May 5, 1949 9
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head_of Harvey H. Bundy true 1952-12-08 chairman of the board of trustees; vice chairman by December 1951 13
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head_of John Foster Dulles true 1952-12-08 chairman of the board of trustees until his designation as Secretary of State 13
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head_of Joseph E. Johnson true 1950-07-01 president; elected May 11, 1950, in office from July 1, 1950 11
2026-09-23 2026-10-26

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a foreign-policy research institution headquartered at 1779 Massachusetts Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., which describes itself as the oldest international-affairs think tank in the United States.12 It was founded in 1910 with a gift of 10 million dollars from Andrew Carnegie, then, in its words, "one of the richest people in the world after the sale of Carnegie Steel to J.P. Morgan," who sought to "hasten the abolition of war, the foulest blot upon our civilization."1

History

In 1945 the former Carnegie president James T. Shotwell led a delegation of advisers to the conference that drafted the United Nations charter and persuaded the U.S. delegation to add an amendment establishing the permanent UN Commission on Human Rights. From the 1970s the endowment built a program on reducing nuclear risks and became, in its own description, "the premier authoritative source of expertise on nonproliferation." Before the Iraq War it convened a working group on a weapons-inspection regime, several of whose recommendations were incorporated in UN Resolution 1441. A Middle Class Task Force launched in 2018 produced a report that, the endowment states, "helped form the basis of President Joe Biden's reinvigorated foreign policy."1

Besides its Washington and California offices it runs centers in Asia, Beirut, Berlin, Brussels and New Delhi: Carnegie China; Carnegie Europe, founded in 2007; Carnegie India, founded in April 2016; the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, founded in 2006; and the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. It lists "over 200 experts" and states that it conducts "strategic dialogues and back-channel diplomacy" and that its scholars "have served in nearly every administration since the endowment's founding." Its trustees have included Dwight D. Eisenhower, Elihu Root, John Foster Dulles, Nicholas Murray Butler, Bill Bradley, Robert Zoellick, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Penny Pritzker.1

Presidents

William Burns, who had retired from the Foreign Service in 2014 after serving as deputy secretary of state, was president from 2015 to 2021.2 Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, a former justice of the Supreme Court of California who had served on the President's Intelligence Advisory Board, was president from November 2021 to June 2026. His Carnegie biography lists him as a director of Inflection AI, Harvard University and LawZero and as a trustee of Anthropic's Long-Term Benefit Trust, which he joined in January 2026 while still president. On August 4, 2026, Anthropic announced that he would join it as its first chief global affairs officer.345

Alger Hiss became the endowment's president. He testified before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1948 that the board had elected him in December 1946 and that he assumed office on February 1, 1947; asked whether John Foster Dulles, chairman of the board of trustees, was the first to approach him, he answered "He first approached me."6 Hiss was at the same time a trustee of the World Peace Foundation, whose president was Harvey H. Bundy.7 The Cox Committee report on tax-exempt foundations stated that Hiss's "nomination and election came about through the efforts of men of proven loyalty and broad experience in public affairs" and that "during his term as president of the Carnegie Endowment, Hiss took no official action to further the Communist cause."8

After Whittaker Chambers's August 1948 testimony Hiss offered his resignation. The trustees, meeting on December 12 and 13, 1948 under John W. Davis (Dulles was abroad), tabled it and granted a leave of absence at full pay, which the executive committee extended on February 17, 1949 to the annual meeting of May 5, 1949. James T. Shotwell acted as president from September 1948. According to Shotwell, William C. Bullitt asked Hiss at the December dinner whether he had checked with James F. Byrnes before taking the post.9

In 1950 a nominating committee of Dulles (chairman), Bundy, David Rockefeller, Earl Harrison and James T. Shotwell chose Joseph E. Johnson, who was elected president on May 11, 1950; Shotwell told Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in 1951 that Johnson "was backed by Harvey H. Bundy" and that Bundy "was able to influence Dulles."1011 Bundy was vice chairman of the board by December 1951. On December 8, 1952, after Dulles resigned the chairmanship on his designation as Secretary of State, the board elected Bundy chairman to fill the unexpired term; he was elected chairman again on May 7, 1953 and May 6, 1954, and the rosters printed in International Conciliation list him as chairman in November 1957. By March 1961 he is listed among the honorary trustees and Whitney North Seymour as chairman.121314

AI Governance

In March 2022 Open Philanthropy recommended 597,717 dollars over two years to the endowment "to support a research project on international AI governance led by Matt Sheehan," under its focus area "Potential Risks from Advanced AI." The same grant page listed another Open Philanthropy grant of 613,380 dollars over three years to the endowment for a project on "Chinese and Indian Perspectives on Biotech Security Risks."15 Matt Sheehan, a senior fellow in the Asia Program and co-director of the China AI Initiative, lived and worked in China from 2010 to 2016 and was previously a fellow at MacroPolo, the think tank of the Paulson Institute.16

On April 29, 2024, Holden Karnofsky announced that he had left Open Philanthropy to join Carnegie as a visiting scholar and would "analyze and write about topics relevant to AI risk reduction," while continuing to serve on Open Philanthropy's board. He wrote that Cuéllar "has been an advocate for taking (what I see as) the biggest risks from AI seriously," that "Carnegie is looking to increase its attention to AI risk," and that its scholars on the subject included Sheehan, "who specializes in China's AI ecosystem." He cited among his reasons for leaving Open Philanthropy "the fact that I'm married to the President of a major AI company," Daniela Amodei of Anthropic.4 He joined Anthropic in January 2025.17

Footnotes

  1. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Our Story," retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/our-story ↩︎

  2. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "William J. Burns," former president (2015 to 2021), biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/william-j-burns ↩︎

  3. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar," former president (2021 to 2026), biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/mariano-florentino-tino-cuellar ↩︎

  4. Karnofsky, Holden. "Joining the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace." EA Forum, April 29, 2024. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/7gzgwgwefwBku2cnL/joining-the-carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace ; Anthropic, "The Long-Term Benefit Trust," September 19, 2023, with later updates. https://www.anthropic.com/news/the-long-term-benefit-trust ↩︎

  5. Anthropic, "Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar to join Anthropic as Chief Global Affairs Officer," August 4, 2026. https://www.anthropic.com/news/tino-cuellar ↩︎

  6. Hearings Regarding Communist Espionage in the United States Government, House Committee on Un-American Activities, 80th Congress, 2d session, 1948, testimony of Alger Hiss, pp. 645-646, https://archive.org/details/hearingsregardin1948unit ↩︎

  7. American Foundations and Their Fields, vol. 6 (1948), entry "World Peace Foundation," https://archive.org/details/americanfoundati0000wilm ↩︎

  8. Report of the Select Committee to Investigate Foundations and Other Comparable Organizations, as filed in the Edward R. Murrow Papers, vol. 46, https://archive.org/details/per_edward-r-murrow-papers_edward-r-murrow-papers_1927-1973_46 ↩︎

  9. United States of America against Alger Hiss: Transcript of Record, second trial, vol. V, testimony of James T. Shotwell, trial transcript pp. 4100-4114, and of John Foster Dulles, pp. 4474-4493. https://archive.org/details/unitedstatesofam05hiss ↩︎

  10. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, answers to the questionnaire of the Select Committee to Investigate Tax-Exempt Foundations, 1952, Edward R. Murrow Papers, vol. 42, https://archive.org/details/per_edward-r-murrow-papers_edward-r-murrow-papers_1927-1973_42 ↩︎

  11. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joseph Esrey Johnson file, New York memorandum of October 30, 1951, FOIA release 1368175-0, https://archive.org/details/JosephEsreyJohnson ↩︎

  12. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Board of Trustees minutes of December 10, 1951, and annual meeting of May 8, 1952 (Vice-Chairman Bundy presiding), Edward R. Murrow Papers, vol. 46, https://archive.org/details/per_edward-r-murrow-papers_edward-r-murrow-papers_1927-1973_46 ↩︎

  13. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Board of Trustees minutes of December 8, 1952, Edward R. Murrow Papers, vol. 42, https://archive.org/details/per_edward-r-murrow-papers_edward-r-murrow-papers_1927-1973_42 ↩︎

  14. International Conciliation, no. 515 (November 1957) and no. 532 (March 1961), https://archive.org/details/sim_international-conciliation_1957-11_515 and https://archive.org/details/sim_international-conciliation_1961-03_532 ↩︎

  15. Open Philanthropy, "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, AI Governance Research," March 2022, archived July 8, 2022. http://web.archive.org/web/20220708131413/https://www.openphilanthropy.org/grants/carnegie-endowment-for-international-peace-ai-governance-research/ ↩︎

  16. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Matt Sheehan," biography, retrieved September 23, 2026. https://carnegieendowment.org/people/matt-sheehan ↩︎

  17. Mathews, Jessica. "Anthropic hired president Daniela Amodei's husband to work on the company's AI safety strategy." Fortune, February 13, 2025. https://fortune.com/2025/02/13/anthropic-hired-president-daniela-amodei-husband-ai-safety-responsible-scaling/ ↩︎